Fire in the hole!

. . . and I mean that literally. I caused a minor fire in the apartment today. All I wanted to do was bake some chocolate chip scones, I have a great recipe and I've been craving them for days. So, when I came home for my lunch break I set about baking. To make a long story short, when I opened the oven to check on the scones, flames came leaping out at me. Now, don't worry I didn't panic. I quickly closed the oven door to make sure the fire stayed relatively contained and then I turned off the power to the oven. For a split second I debated between practicality and extra precaution, the latter being the choice to use the fire extinguisher. Practicality won out in the end. I figured that if I used the fire extinguisher on the flames I'd have to tell our landlord about it and then something would have to be done 'professionally' to the oven and I really didn't think that I could handle that financially . . . plus it was a relatively tiny fire . . . I think.

Anyway, what did I do, you ask? I took a quick look at the flames again to make sure it wasn't electrical items burning and then took a mug of water and flung the contents at the flames. Probably not the best choice and I can just hear the collective gasp of horror that's coming out of you all as you read this. The water did the trick though and out went the flames. The apartment was filled with smoke and even now, hours later, still smells slightly smoky . . . although more like bonfire than oven fire, which is kind of nice. And the icing on the cake is that the scones still turned out wonderfully despite being licked by flames! It's not the way I would recommend baking them but if I added, "Don't do this at home kids," to the end of the story I feel like it can be like any other public service announcement. All's well that ends well though, the fire is out, the oven is fine, no one got hurt and I don't have to pay to replace an appliance that I can't afford in the first place. I will be cleaning out the oven thoroughly though so that there isn't anything else that can catch on fire and I think I make take a hiatus from baking just as a precaution.